All entries tagged with “Suzanne Atwell”

Sarasota on Monday to Consider Change in Election Cycle

Posted by Jacob Ogles on Tuesday Jun 30, 2015 12:24 pm

Sarasota City Commissioners on Monday will consider asking voters if city elections should be rescheduled to coincide with state and national elections.

The discussion was raised in early June by Vice Mayor Suzanne Atwell, who said voter turnout would be improved if city contests coincided with gubernatorial and presidential elections. She advocated having a first city election coincide with state primaries in late August and for runoffs to coincide with the general election in early November, and said elections should take place in even-numbered years. A change in election dates would require a change to the city charter. Critics of such a change say there is no guarantee turnout is city contests will increase, particular during the initial August election, and that city issues may take a back seat to other state and federal matters when it comes to volunteer interest and media attention.

City Attorney Robert Fournier said he will bring the issue back before commissioners on Monday. A majority of the board could put a charter amendment up as a referendum, leaving the final decision to city voters. Fournier will ask commissioners on Monday whether they want an ordinance drafted that could do just that. If so, the matter would need to come back to the commission in a public hearing and approved before the referendum was scheduled for a citywide vote.

Fournier said if commissioners do want an ordinance drafted, he would need to know when commissioners want the question to go before voters. Commissioners could schedule the election to coincide with another election, such as the primary election in August 2016 or the general election in 2016, or they could pay to hold a special election. 

And before the issue was put before voters, commissioners would also need to lay out a schedule for phasing the change in, Fournier said. Right now, two city commissioners are scheduled to have terms expire in May 2017 and the other three commissioners have terms expiring in May 2019. "I want to avoid truncating anyone's term," Fournier said. To do so, Fournier believes, could open the city up to a legal challenge. The matter has been handled differently in other cities. For example, when Bradenton moved its city elections from odd- to even-numbered years, the terms of council members and the mayor were extended by a year.

Sarasota to Consider November Elections

Posted by Jacob Ogles on Monday Jun 1, 2015 4:29 pm

Sarasota Vice Mayor Suzanne Atwell asked staff to explore the possibility of holding city elections concurrent with November general elections. The city will bring information back at a later date, when the commission will decide details and consider placing the matter on a citywide ballot in November 2016.

"It's time to give Sarasota a place at the grown-up table," Atwell said, citing low citywide turnout of 18.7 percent in the recent Sarasota city election held May 12. In that contest, Sarasota City Commission races in District 2 and 3 drew resepctive turnouts of 27.72 percent and 16.78 percent, while two noncontroversial charter amendments drew a turnout of 6.31 percent in District 1.

City Attorney Robert Fournier said the matter would need to be put on a future agenda so that the public could speak to the issue. Research in the meantime will be done on such issues as how to schedule runoffs, how to phase in a change when sitting commissioners were sworn into terms on a May cycle, and when would be the most important time for voters to weigh in on the change.

City Commissioner Susan Chapman immediately noted that turnout in May seemed particualy low because voters in District 1 only had housekeeping amendments to draw them to the polls, and the 6.31 percent turnout there artificially lowered turnout citywide. She said a switch to November elections would be more complicated than it sounds. "Which election are candidates going to be narrowed down in? Is the first election in November, or is it in August, which has the lowest turnout of all?," she said.

Atwell said an August-November election cycle works for other nonpartisan offices such as School Board and Judge.

UPDATED: Willie Shaw Remains Sarasota Mayor, Suzanne Atwell Now Vice

Posted by Jacob Ogles on Friday May 15, 2015 12:44 pm

Following the swearing in of new City Commissioners Shellie Freeland Eddie and Liz Alpert, as well as swearing in CIty Commissioner Willie Shaw to a second term, the Sarasota City Commission named Shaw to a secone one-year term as mayor of Sarasota. City Commissioner Suzanne Atwell was selected as vice mayor.

The day also provided a chance for outgoing commissioners to take shots at media and for Shaw to defend the city after a change election.

The special meeting at City Hall started out with Shaw’s State of the City address, in which he seemed both to respond the apparent rebuke of the commission some read in the ouster of incumbents Stan Zimmerman and Eileen Normile while simultaneously expressing hope for the new commission moving forward. “This city for the past eight months or more has been out of the printed press as a confused, arguing, bickering city,” he said. “We were given the opportunity to once again govern. That we will and we have and will yet going forward.”

Eddie, in her first remarks as a commissioner, said she hoped the strife between city and county government would be healed by the change in guard. “There is no line between city and county,” she said. Alpert echoed similar sentiment, and promised to do her best to honor all facets of the community. “I’m grateful to voters and thankful for the opportunity to make Sarasota an even greater place to live, work and play,” she said.

Zimmerman and Normile on their way out took swipes at local media, labeling it dormant or inaccurate, respectively. “The fourth estate has become the enemy of public discourse,” Normile suggested. Zimmerman said reporters at all media outlets in town failed to do enough research on the background of his and Normile's opponents. "The local media was intellectually AWOL," he said.

But for all the sharp commentary, the new commission worked together in ways that defied voting blocs that might be inferred from the outgoing speeches. In the mayoral selections, Commissioner Susan Chapman, after making clear she did not desire the mayoral seat while she was engaged in litigation about a Sunshine Law allegation, nominated Shaw for a second term. Alpert supported naming Commissioner Suzanne Atwell as mayor, but Eddie supported staying with Shaw. Shaw in turn suggested Eddie as vice mayor, but the commission named Atwell to that role instead.

Chapman indeed sounded magnanimous about the election results, after an election cycle where her own leadership almost stood as a proxy to incumbent candidates as challengers confronted the status quo. While she thanked Normile and Zimmerman for, in her view, helping restore civility on the board, she also said she looked forward to working with the new, historic commission. "Never before has this commission had four women," she noted, "and equally important, never outside a District 1 has there been an African-American elected. Never before have we had two African-Americans on the commission. This is a great moment for the City of Sarasota. Now let's work together and make history."

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